Honestly speaking, I was still very confused on how any of this happened.
The realization of my own state refused to settle cleanly in my mind.
I could feel it, undeniably so, coursing through my ridians with a smoothness I had never experienced before, yet understanding lagged far behind sensation.
I stood there, breathing steadily, trying to reconcile mory with reality. Just before losing consciousness, I had been barely holding myself together, burning through soul energy recklessly just to survive long enough to finish what I started.
There had been no breakthrough, no mont of clarity, no structured ascension. Just desperation, poison, and collapse. And yet here I was, standing upright, aware, and sothing far beyond what I had been before.
I an, how did I get to be a Heaven Stage cultivator? The question wasn’t rhetorical. It sat there, heavy and unresolved, demanding logic that simply wasn’t present. I was not that high up on the Origin stage either.
I had made progress, yes, but nothing even remotely close to justifying a leap of this magnitude. The difference between stages wasn’t a step; it was a chasm.
A climb that required preparation, refinent, and more often than not, suffering through tribulation.
But to reach the Heaven Stage? And from the looks of it, I’m almost halfway through the stage itself.
That part bothered the most. This wasn’t just a breakthrough. It was a jump forward inside the stage itself, as if ti had been compressed and forcefully applied to my cultivation.
I couldn’t fully understand at first, but then again, I rembered sothing important. The mory surfaced slowly, like sothing dragged up from deep water.
The chamber. The enforcer. That conversation that felt half real and half beyond comprehension. It hadn’t been a dream. Not entirely. It carried too much coherence, too much weight.
The Enforcer himself had ntioned that I’ll need to co sees him whenever I’ll be facing a tribulation, basically he’ll be the tribulation instead of the thunder clouds.
That part ca back with unsettling clarity. If that was true, then sothing had happened while I was unconscious. Sothing I didn’t consciously experience, or perhaps sothing I wasn’t ant to rember.
But, we didn’t fight.
That was the contradiction. There was no battle, no clash of power, no resistance. No trial in the way cultivators understood it.
’Still, I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, I’ll take what I can get." The thought ca with a trace of dry practicality.
Confusion or not, power was power. And in a world where survival depended on being stronger than the next threat, questioning a gain too deeply sotis bordered on stupidity.
"Lord, you seem confused."
The Automaton’s voice pulled back outward. He stood where he had been, composed as ever, observing without intrusion but missing nothing.
"Oh, don’t worry just things I’m thinking about, speaking of my wives, I an, Liang Yu and Yuyu, where did they go?" I asked. My tone shifted naturally, concern threading through it now that the imdiate confusion had sowhere to anchor.
"Yes, Master Don Ma has taken them to his planet to cultivate."
My brows twitched imdiately at that. The phrasing alone carried implications I didn’t particularly enjoy.
"He said that one of your wives have a bracelet you can use to contact him."
"You bet your ass I’m contacting him," I said, already reaching into my storage without hesitation. My fingers closed around one of the communication devices, and I activated it with a sharp flick of intent.
A small hologram of Liang Yu showed up in front of . The projection flickered into clarity, hovering at chest level, detailed enough to catch every expression.
She was sweating and red faced. Sothing cultivators should be suffering. That alone told enough about the environnt she was in. Cultivators didn’t show signs like that unless pushed, or unless the environnt itself demanded it.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"That’s the first thing you say after a month of being unconscious."
Her response ca imdiately, laced with just enough irritation to be familiar. Even through the projection, I could see the slight narrowing of her eyes.
"What else do you want to ask then, the two of you just disappeared." I replied. There was no point dressing it up. A month gone and they vanished to another planet. Anyone would ask that first.
"We’re cultivating," Yuyu’s voice sounded from not so far away.
At my prompting, the perspective shifted, the projection widening slightly to reveal more of their surroundings.
I saw Yuyu seated on a black slab that radiated cold so intense it distorted the air around it. Frost had accumulated in layers, creeping outward like slow-growing crystal. Liang Yu, on the other hand, was positioned atop sothing resembling a tortoise shell, its surface etched with natural patterns that pulsed faintly with heat. Vines curled around it, not inert but alive, twisting in subtle motion, distorting space itself with the temperature they carried.
"Cultivating your elents?" I asked, taking in the details.
"Yes, master Don Ma gifted us this cave, where we can rapidly increase our cultivation along with a great deal of Origin Crystals."
"I see... he’s being very... generous." The pause was intentional. Generosity on that level always ca with a question mark attached.
"Is that jealousy I hear?" Liang Yu teased.
"You don’t want to see jealous," I replied, the words coming easily even as my mind noted the irony. "I’ll head over to the Dusking Sun, seems like he’ll need for sothing. You got your escape talismans?" I asked. The shift back to practical concerns ca naturally. Cultivation caves and gifts were one thing. Safety was another.
Liang Yu frowned, "Would that serve much if sothing happens?"
I frowned back instinctively. She had a point. Don Ma was fast. Too fast. If he intended harm, talismans might not matter. Still, nothing so far suggested ill intent. That didn’t an blind trust was wise either.
"Fine, fine, I’ll co see you once I’m done with my business. Also, you know where Zhang Tian or ng Hao are?" I asked, shifting topics before the conversation circled into unnecessary tension.
"No clue, last I saw they were with The Lord of Lords and the Wisest Sun." Liang Yu shrugged her shoulders at my words.
"Good then." I nodded slightly, committing that to mory.
Suddenly the rumbling seed to stop outside, and the clouds around the planet of Solarous began dispersing. The violent churn that had wrapped the globe started to thin, red layers breaking apart as if so imnse pressure had finally been released. The shift was gradual but unmistakable.
A powerful and clean energy emanated from inside Solarous. It spread outward in waves, no longer violent like the tribulation but stable, refined, controlled. Even from this distance, I could feel the difference. It was the kind of energy that ca after surviving sothing imnse.
Just as I was peering, a blue figure suddenly showed up in front of the Lord of Lords pagoda. She appeared without fanfare, stepping into view as if space had simply made room for her presence.
"Ho... you grew strong," I muttered, watching her with narrowed eyes. The difference in her aura was imdiate. Denser. Cleaner. Controlled in a way it hadn’t been before. "Let her in, automaton."
A portal opened next to her and she walked in, "What do you think?" she smiled making a simple spin around herself. The motion was light, almost playful, but the energy around her remained steady, contained with deliberate ease.
I clapped, letting the gesture carry just enough acknowledgnt without overdoing it. "A powerful figure had joined the confederation."
"No, I’m not planning on joining them," she shook her head.
I raised a brow at that. "I thought you’ll find it good to be here, among peers. And powerful cultivators." It was the logical path. Advancent, alliances, protection.
"No, I’ll be working with Tao Yang on this planet. We’ll rehabilitate it, and revive the lost fauna and flora."
"A grand task, a thankless one." I said, aning every word. Restoring a world was never as celebrated as saving it.
"Worlds are easy to break, but are much harder to repair. Not to ntion, this planet is very special," she said.
That caught my attention more sharply. "How so?"
"It seems that it has strands and slivers of an energy unlike what we know of. Sothing purer than Saint Qi, and Origin Qi."
"How? Is that even possible?" I asked. That kind of statent wasn’t sothing thrown around lightly.
"That’s the reason I believe the cultivators of Solarous were able to progress so fast. Sothing of that caliber can easily elevate a person’s cultivation, I don’t have proof of it, but I feel it. and now, more than ever."
I nodded slowly. It lined up with what I had seen. Rapid growth. Unusual breakthroughs. Solarous had always been different. Perhaps this was why.
"I’ll have to et up with the Dusking Sun for sothing, got any idea where he could be?" I asked.
"I think he’s at the confederation with the Darkest Sun."
"Darkest? When did he get here?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
"Sa ti as everyone else, only he remained away, he had a hunch that there were more Rakshasas outside of Solarous..."
"Most of them were here though, we could have used his help..." I frowned. The Darkest Sun wasn’t soone I trusted easily, but he wasn’t a coward either. Avoiding the battlefield entirely didn’t fit.
"That’s what I also thought, until he brought the corpse of a First Born."
"What?" I asked, my voice rising without control. That wasn’t a small detail to drop casually.
"Yes, one of the First Borns, a younger one apparently was adaptable to space. And camouflaged itself with the darkness of space. If we had finished the killing of the Rakshasa and the Darkest Sun never made it here, we would never know that one of them still lived. It could have been more than capable of recreating this exact nightmare."
The implication settled heavily. A hidden survivor. A reset button for the entire disaster.
"How did he even kill it?" I asked.
"It was still stuck within the range of the broken Dao, so although he fought it to a standstill, once the Dao was corrected, the First Born lost its immunity to Qi. So, you still did the majority of the effort."
"Ah I see, I thought he was holding on us so vital information. Alright, I’ll head to the confederation then, you can stay here if you like." I said, letting the earlier irritation settle into sothing more neutral.
"I’ll need to stabilize my cultivation for a bit of ti, see you soon Shen Bao."
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